Bio
Italian, b. 1969
Lives and works in London, England
Maurizio Anzeri intricately embroiders directly onto found photographs with colored thread, in “an alchemic process of obscuring and revealing, erasing and enhancing.” The faces of serious-looking children, sophisticated adults, and prim newlyweds are obscured by intricate threadwork masks, while leaving exposed an eye, a mouth, or an ear. In his landscapes, diagrammatic rays emanate from both the natural and built environment, suggesting unseen and mysterious phenomena. Anzeri’s deft handiwork turns vintage portraits and landscapes into surreal, psychologically charged images, while upending the conventions of traditional photography.
Anzeri studied sculpture and graphic design at the Camberwell College of Fine Arts, and received his MFA from The Slade School of Fine Art, London. His work has been exhibited in solo shows at Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, UK; Cardiff Arts Centre, UK; and other loca- tions in New York, Milan, Dusseldorf, Turin and London. Notable group exhibitions include Known and Strange: Photographs from the Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK (2021); Self Service at Dallas Contemporary, TX (2019); Icon- oclasts: Art Out of the Mainstream, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK (2017); The King and I, Shanghai Gallery of Art, China (2016); The Needle’s Eye: Contemporary Embroidery, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway (2015); Secondhand, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA (2015); UK Photography Now: The Constructed View, Dong Gang Museum of Photography, Seoul, Korea (2013); and One Night In Paris, The Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK (2009). His work is held in collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; The Pilara Foundation Collection, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, CA; Museo Cantonale, Lugano, Switzerland; Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf, Germany; and the Saatchi, Gagosian, and Rothschild collec- tions.